Table Of Content

CLATSOP COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY QUARTERLY HonowuLss, 7. He % VoL. 41, No. 2—SPRING 2021 C#I9CM8AH.GS0E3 6 Mrs. LYLE MARY WHEELER In This Issue. . . The theme for this issue of Cumtux might be how children combine work with play and, in time, learn the responsibilities of adults. John Seeborg reminisced about growing up in the Depression years when spending money was earned only by initiative and invention. Pride and confidence were the results. Some funny memories were recorded in his autobiography brought by him to CCHS. Few teachers at AHS attracted a following as Mrs. Lyle Mary Wheeler did. Mrs. Wheeler had a good sense of humor and was open to new ideas like the Torcher Hole Club proposed by Ralph Norgaard. In a recorded interview with Ralph, he described some of this popular club’s crazy events. He also talked about his college football career, finding employment, and living in Deep River, Washington. Also, in this issue is a story Barbara Gonzalez wrote for a Clatsop Community College class by Dr. Julie Brown in 2009 after interviewing people who grew up in a Deep River logging camp. —The Editor CLATSOP COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY SUMTUX CLATSOP COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY 714 Exchange St. P.O. Box 88 Astoria, Oregon 97103-0088 ($03) 325-2203 CLATSOP COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY [email protected] www.astoriamuseums.org QUARTERLY Vol. 41, No. 2 — Spring 2021 Heritage Museum 16th and Exchange St., Astoria Copyright © 2021 Clatsop County Historical Society (ISSN 1083-9216) Flavel House Museum 8th and Duane St., Astoria Oregon Film Museum 7th and Duane St., Astoria CONTENTS Uppertown Firefighters Museum 30th and Marine Drive, Astoria 1 A Finn From Astoria by John E. Seeborg BOARD OF DIRECTORS Luke Colvin, Astoria, OR President 28 Interview with David Reid, Astoria, OR Ralph Norgaard Vice-President from the Archives Kent Easom, Coeur d’Alene, ID Secretary 35 The Torcher Hole Gang Kent Ivanoff, Astoria, OR Treasurer 39 Custom Cars Jim Aalberg, Warrenton, OR Andrew Bornstein, Bellingham, WA by Stanley Simson Brett Estes, Astoria, OR Craig Hoppes, Astoria, OR 43 Memories for a Lifetime: Julie Kovatch, Astoria, OR Patricia Roberts, Gearhart, OR By Barbara Gonzalez Randy Stemper, Astoria, OR Dulcye Taylor, Astoria, OR STAFF McAndrew Burns Executive Director Sam Rascoe Director of Marketing Liisa Penner Archivist & Cumtux Editor Chelsea Vaughn Curator Emily Rivera Business Manager Matt Powers Facilities Manager Sheila Nolan FRONT COVER: Susan Swanby JOHN SEEBORG Michael Wentworth Cumtux Support CUMTUXx: Chinook jargon: “To know...to inform” Recollections of Early Boyhood Adventures A FINN FROM ASTORIA by John E. Seeborg Introduction by Lawrence Seeborg OHN SEEBORG'S EARLY life was (Kit). John worked as an insurance typical for a boy growing up in agent for most of his life and lived the 1920s and 1930s in Astoria. for many years in McMinnville, And he had plenty of company. Oregon, until his death in 2002. He was one of thirteen children John thought that family history of Vic and Fanny Seeborg, who should be preserved. He encouraged survived to adulthood. Their first his nephew, Lawrence, to investigate child, Bill, was born in 1905, and and write the WWII history of their last daughter, Lora Jean, was his brother, Arvid, who died in a born in 1931. John and his twin Japanese prisoner of war camp in brother, Arvid, arrived in 1918, at 1942 (Cumtux, Spring 2003). In the midpoint of this twenty-six-year the 1990s, John began writing the period. The early life of the Seeborg history of his immediate family. He family in Astoria was written by completed this task on the Fourth John’s brother, Arnold, and was of July in 1998. This family history publishedi n the Autumn 1984 issue was written primarily for his four of Cumtux. Later, a short history of grandchildren. However, he also each of Vic and Fanny’s children donated a copy to the Clatsop was presented in this publication’s County Historical Society for their Spring and Summer 2018 issues. archives. On the last page of his John was the “life of the party” history, he said, “If the Society... at family reunions with his many finds short portions worth including jokes and anecdotes, bringing in their publication, Cumtux, that forth peals of laughter from those will be all right with me.” The in attendance. And, if given the following pages contain some of opportunity, he was happy to pull John’s memories and impressions out his harmonica to play a tune. of his early life in Astoria taken However, his primary loves were from his family history, AF inn From those of the entire Seeborg family, Astoria. especially his immediate family, including his wife, Jane, and their daughters, Suzanne and Kirsten 1 CLATSOP COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY SEEBORGS IN THE BEGINNING Prior to 1918, Russia was the ruler over Finland, which was sort of squeezed between Russia and Sweden. In the late 1880s, two families, unrelated and unknown to each other, chose to leave SJAAAOUDSO VXANHOLAWPYYAT NTMOSV DT Finland for America. One was the Reinikka family, the other the Tolvanen family. Johan and Eva Maria Reinikka and three of their children, including a young girl named Fanny, settled in Astoria’s fishing community at the mouth of the Columbia River. Frederick Tolvanen brought his family, ae 3 Pe ae including his young son, Victor, VIC AND FANNY SEEBORG - CIRCA 1920. to the farming area near Kelso, ABOUT TWO YEARS AFTER THEIR TWINS, JOHN & ARVID WERE BORN. Washington, on the Cowlitz River. Not long after the family became and Jacob in a farming area called settled, Victor Ferdinand Tolvanen, Brush Prairie, near Vancouver, then about eleven, accompanied his Washington. (Reinikka Ancestors father to the county courthouse, and Descendants, page 102-103) where his father petitioned the Destiny had Victor and Fanny court to change his name to meet in Astoria about 1903. A “Seeborg.” From that day on, Victor, romance developed, and the his brother Hugo, their sisters Ida wedding took place on August and Annaa,n d their parents were to 24th, 1904, barely two months be known as “Seeborg.” No one has after Fanny’s seventeenth birthday. heard of any reason for the change Victor was twenty-one. Children in name, only theories. were born oft his marriage at fairly At age fifteen, Fanny Elvira regular intervals; first, Victor Reinikka, her sister, Josefiina, and William (“Bill”) on June 21st, 1905S, their brother, William, settled in then Hugo Henry on November Astoria with their parents while 21st, 1906, Hannah Marie on other siblings had previously settled August 8th, 1909, Hilma Elvira on elsewhere: Aldrick in Quincy, January 21st, 1912, Edward Francis near Clatskanie, about forty miles on October 22nd, 1913, and Helen upriver from Astoria; Edward Ida on January 24th, 1916. CumTux — VOL. 41, No. 1 — WINTER 2021 it. When Eddie and Mary got home, They got to ride. Boy, were we ticked they noticed the door missing and offa t that.” asked what had happened to it. When they first moved to the Mickey said that Butchie told them camp, Diane’s parents told her that “he thought that it was looking and her sister that they would be so bad that he decided to take it getting a surprise and that it was off so that it would look better.” on the moving truck. Diane was The only thing that his father said, certain it was toys and told her according to Mickey, was, “That's new friends that they were getting a good idea.” So, he got away with new toys. “Imagine my surprise, that stunt without them knowing, shock, and disappointment when and Mickey never told them until a new bedroom set was unloaded years later. from the van, and we were told that Diane lived in a house just over was the surprise. I’ve laughed over from Mickey, and they played that incident many times over the together regularly. Diane’s dad, years.” Evelyn, Diane's sister, went Eric Johnson, worked for Deep to school with some of the kids from River logging as a blacksmith, and the camp. They moved into the camp she can remember his boss, Fred right before school started that year, Strom, giving money to the kids at and she “entered the second grade Christmas. She remembers the pop with Mickey, Bunny Engleson, and machine that was in the office and Joann Balza. It was nice to already how ice cold the drinks were when know some classmates.” Their dad, they came out-Orange Crush was being the “blacksmith and welder her favorite. Her mom, Ila Johnson, in the camp, could fix or make just worked asa flunky (waitress) in the about anything for the woods.” He cookhouse, and Diane was expected “worked long hours when things to finish the supper that would have broke down so that everything been started when she got home. would be ready for the next day, Diane got an allowance of twenty even some Saturdays and Sundays.” dollars a month to do this and to She enjoyed playing with the help with the housework. Tonka trucks that Steve Hurse had They rode the school bus into and remembered that they played Naselle to go to school. In one on the hillside between the house instance in the wintertime, she can and the train tracks. They had fun remember the road by Larson’s Hill sliding down the hill on pieces of was slick; the bus driver “had all cardboard. Her mom and Mary the children get off the bus at the Hurse would take the kids almost bottom oft he hill except for Ralph anywhere, and Eddie Hurse used Olmsted and Delbert Bergquist. to take the kids to basketball games. 45 CLATSOP COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY There was “always room for two and there was a fire in the woods more kids.” A couple of times on the close to the camp. Wayne Jacob’s way home, they would find a slide house was one that burned down. on the road, and the car could not Mickey said that “his family went get through, so they “would have to the movies in Ilwaco, to see A to walk in the dark to Schlick’s or Streetcar Named Desire, and when Appelo’s and they would take us they got back to the camp, they home.” found that the oil stove in their Playing in the pond was another house had exploded.” fun thing to do, and one winter Shirley Olmstead thinks fondly when she was sick, Diane helped of the memories of growing up Evelyn climb out of the window so in the camp. She can remember that she could skate on the ice. All playing in the woods and in the the kids were playing there, and she river. The kids used to walk across fell through the ice. When Diane a log to get to the other side of the went home to change her clothes, river, knowing that they would get they got caught. “We both were in in trouble if their parents found trouble, but I got over my cold and out. Playing on the train tracks was cough in a hurry. We still laugh always great fun, and putting pen- about that one.” nies on them was a favorite thing to Evelyn remembers hearing a do. She loved to pick huckleberries story about Bunny Engleson that and knew the best places to go to happened before they moved there. find them. Bunny was about five or six, and Shirley also remembers riding after the train had finished its morn- the school bus and told me that ing run, she climbed onto the train there was one time when just after and it took off with her. The men saw Steve Bergquist had gotten on, they the train moving and ran after it. I had to wait for the train to go by at “don’t know what kind of trouble the bottom ofL arson’s Hill. Just as she got into.” Bunny’s brother used the last car of logs was going by, it to repeat the bad language that he lost its load, and the logs rolled off. heard from the loggers, and he never Shirley said, “Luckily, the logs rolled got into trouble for saying them, but across the road and down the bank Bunny did. So, Bunny and Evelyn of the road. Needless to say, we had would “go out somewhere, sit by a alot to talk about that day at school.” tree, and say all the bad words we The kids used to go to the cook- could think of. The trees didn't seem house and get treats because Diane's to mind.” mom and some of the other moms During the time that they lived worked there. They all felt very safe there, several houses burned down, in the camp, and nobody locked 46 CumMTUx — VOL. 41 No. 2—SpRING 2021 their doors. The kids never bullied blackberry bushes.” When I asked one another, but, like all kids, they Mickey about this, he stated, “He did pick on one another a little bit. is not telling the story right; I didn't Jim was born while his parents know how to ride the bike.” lived in the camp. They moved for While they had a lot of fun in the a short time to Ilwaco and then camp, some sad things happened came back. When they first came they had to deal with. They had back, there was no house for them friends move out of the camp. And to move into, so they stayed in the they even had to deal with the death bunkhouses with the guys. Jim of one of their friends. Butchie remembers that he stayed in one Hurse died while they were still house while his parents, George living in the camp, and some oft he and Despina Natseos, and his sister boys saw this accident happen. Corrine lived in another. Both ofh is The children grew up close, and parents worked in the camp, and he they still keep in touch with one an- remembers that it was “like being a other. They used to have a reunion latch-key kid for him and his sister.” every couple of years, but now some During the summer, the girls ran of them are gone. Even though their all over the place, and played ball lives led them down different paths, with the guys. There was only one they have a bond from the past that rule: since the camp closed its gate will always be there. > at nine, they had to be out ofit . He Sources: can remember on Sundays watching Carlton E. Appelo, A pioneer scrap- book of the Columbia River North-Shore the firemen start up the train so that communities: Wahkiakum and Pacific it would be ready to go on Monday. Counties, Washington, 1900-1985 Bess River, WA.: C. E. Appelo, c1986) Watching TV at the Hurse house Shirley Bigness, e-mail mes- was popular; “Mary and Eddie were sage to author, January 22, 2009 always kind to the kids.” Diane Gustafson, e-mail mes- Jim played with Butchie, and sage to author, January, 2009 “they always had to drag Mickey Michael Hurse, In discussion with author, January 2009 around with them.” He remembers Megan Moholt, Weyerhauser that they would take Mickey to the history archive, January 26, 2009 top ofa hill witahb ik e and push him Evelyn Naimo, e-mail message down it. “If Mickey did it just right, to author, January 24, 2009 Jim Natseos, In discussion he would crash and burn into the with author, January 20, 2009 47 CLatsop County HIsTorIcaL SOCIETY FROM THE PHOTO COLLECTION I'JIIOSZ €V8W#I SHOO Beg os a é deci ‘te: THESE SVENSEN AREA BOYS KNEW HOWTO HAVE FUN. GLASS PLATE NEGATIVE BY ELMER COE, CA. 1900. 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